TeachersFirst's Inventors and Inventions Resources

Invent and Innovate! This collection of reviewed resources from TeachersFirst is selected to help teachers, parents, and students learn about inventors and inventions. Use these resources for science or social studies lessons and activities about innovation and invention, in observance of National Inventors' Day (celebrated on February 11, Thomas Edison's birthday), or at any time during the school year. Whether you are simply learning about the history of invention or planning a schoolwide Invention Convention, these resources will provide inspiration and project possibilities.

Discover, create, and share digital resources from the Smithsonian Museum, the National Zoo, and nine major research centers with this visually appealing site. Use the search feature to find digital resources including photos, recordings, videos, and text. Sign up to create your own collections, including those found on the site and your own resources. Add annotations and develop quizzes. Easily share your creations or curated collections using social networking links provided. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable. You could always view them at home and bring them to class "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as KeepVid, reviewed here, to download the videos from YouTube.

In the Classroom

The Smithsonian Learning Lab is a must-add to your list of classroom bookmarks! Search for collections and information throughout the year on all topics. Add a link to classroom computers for the entire site or specific collections. Be sure to take advantage of the many features of this site to create customized collections, then have students add additional resources. Have students create quizzes for review of topics. Challenge students to create a simple infographic sharing their findings using Easel.ly, reviewed here.

Visit the redesigned Patent Office KIDS! web pages featuring young inventor profiles, new activities, and videos. Find contests, links, videos, and more to help kids of all ages learn about trademarks and patents, and the importance of intellectual property creation and protection. The invention and design focus of most of the activities makes for perfect STEM and "maker space" lessons. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable. You could always view them at home and bring them to class "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as KeepVid, reviewed here, to download the videos from YouTube.

In the Classroom

Whether an elementary, middle, or high school teacher you'll find lesson plans for building model rockets, a mechanical grasper, how sound travels, and more. Use an interactive whiteboard or projector and start by viewing the video on the home page titled Extraordinary Innovations; there is a thorough lesson plan with a cool extension that includes ideas for creating a new toy or piece of sports equipment based on a favorite. The lesson plan extension has students create a timeline for the invention of the snowboard. Why not make this an interactive timeline with music, photos, videos, and more using Capzles, reviewed here?

Learn something new each day with Highbrow's unique course delivery system. Sign up for a course, then receive an email each day with a five to ten-minute lesson. Each course is completed in ten days making learning quick and easy! Choose from many different course options in subjects such as art, literature, and history. Highbrow only allows one course per user at a time to encourage complete focus on each topic. If you don't see what you like, choose the Create Course option and create your own learning experience using your expertise!

In the Classroom

Highbrow is perfect for differentiated learning. Allow students to choose their own topic and sign up for a course. When complete, choose another topic and start a new course. Have students create commercials for finished courses using Powtoon, reviewed here, and share them using a tool such as TeacherTube, reviewed here. Challenge students to create a course after a unit of study as a final assessment. Be sure to include this site on your class webpage for students to access both in and outside of class for personal use.

We are accustomed to hearing the voices of celebrities and important leaders today, but it has been less than 150 years since the invention of sound recording technology. Earliest Voices is an archive of recordings from the earliest years between 1877 and 1927. Hear Booker T. Washington speak about race relations or William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech. Listen to Thomas Edison (who was the inventor of the technology) speak about advances in technology and electricity. Find a short biography and images along with the recordings. A Real Player plugin is required.

In the Classroom

Bringing early voices to life in the classroom can help connect students with these important figures from history. Do their voices sound as you expected? Along with the audio records, you'll find important contextual information about early audio recordings, and about the circumstances surrounding each speech or recording.

Use Legos as learning tools with these great lesson plans and activities for several different topics. Learn about chemical reactions, photosynthesis, symmetry, and the Nile River through the use of Legos. In addition to lesson plans, many activities include worksheets and printables to support the learning activities. Just look down the middle of the landing page to find the topic you want. Although this site does have many distracting advertisements, the activities are worth exploring.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Use ideas from this site to create learning centers or as a start for group projects. Include ideas from this site on your class webpage for students to complete at home. Have students upload a photo of a finished project and add voice bubbles to explain what they learned using a tool such as Superlame, reviewed here.

Explore an Inventor's Workshop through the eyes of Leonardo da Vinci. Choose from different parts of the toolbox to discover elements of machines, gadget anatomy, and play Leonardo's Mysterious Machinery. Other portions of the workshop take viewers deeper into the world of Leonardo by providing perspective on Renaissance times, exploring his special way of writing, and discovering Leonardo's activities in different Italian cities.

In the Classroom

This site is perfect for use on your interactive whiteboard. Explore the different portions together during your studies of the Renaissance, inventors, or artists such as Leonardo da Vinci. Share a link to this site on your class webpage for students to explore at home, or add a link on classroom computers for use during computer centers. Have students use Fakebook, reviewed here, to create a "fake" page similar in style to Facebook about Leonardo da Vinci or other Renaissance artists.

Explore the Science of Innovation with this series of seventeen videos provided by NBC Learn. Each video looks at different innovations such as bionic limbs or 3-D printing. All videos run about five minutes in length and include a written transcript and lesson ideas. Lesson ideas include handouts, collaborative inquiry activities, and assessment rubrics.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Although part of a larger pay for use site, this portion of the site is free. Use this site as an anticipatory set or "activator" to introduce a unit or lesson on a projector or interactive whiteboard. Use this site as the starting point for individual or group projects. Take advantage of the free lesson plan and incorporate suggestions into your current units. Have students brainstorm or collect ideas on other innovative ideas on a collaborative bulletin board like Scrumblr, reviewed here (quick start- no membership required!).

Travel back in time to enter the Roman civilization. Through videos, interactive timelines, and interactive games learn about the Romans. Categories include inventions, food, numerals, gods, entertainment, republic, slavery, empire, architecture, art, army, education, emperors, and clothing.

In the Classroom

Enter the world of ancient Romans and become a citizen. Use as a resource when reading Roman Myths or other Roman literature. Compare and contrast other ancient civilizations such as ancient Greece. Use this website as an example for creating other research projects on time eras or places. Introduce on your interactive whiteboard or projector to your class and continue study at centers. Use as background information to create stories placed in ancient Rome. Challenge your gifted students to create their own world and all the inventions, foods, numerals, gods, entertainment, art, education, and leadership.

Ducksters is a safe, extensive, educational portal for kids. Find a wide choice of content such as interactives, sports, movies, and music. Begin by choosing a category to explore choices. The study category includes extensive information such as world history, many biographies, science explanations, and information on all continents and many countries. Interactive subjects include math times tables, checkers, and guess the country. There is a TON here to explore.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

This site is a perfect addition for use with a biography unit. Explore and share information categorized by topics such as Civil Rights, the Cold War, and Ancient Greece. Have students use Fakebook, reviewed here, to create a "fake" page similar in style to Facebook about a president, famous scientist, or nearly any other real or fictitious person. Be sure to create a link to the site on your class webpage or newsletter for students to explore at home. Create a link on classroom computers for students to use the interactives during center time.

Science becomes creative at The Creators Project. As they describe themselves, "The Creators Project is a global network dedicated to the celebration of creativity, arts and technology." Find fascinating works of art and functional inventions that use unusual materials, clever design, and unique applications of science and engineering. New posts appear regularly, featuring collections, exhibitions, or featured inventions. Watch videos or read text posts with images of such things as a $30,000 dog house, "fossilized" books as sculpture, or a motion-activated keyboard. Browse the latest features with links to related posts. Click tags at the end of a post to find related ideas, or search for a specific word to explore past posts. A few of the ads are annoying, but hitting refresh makes them change.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Turn STEM into STEAM in your science, math, or art class. This project is perfect for convincing students that science is neither boring nor unimaginative! Lure your artistic students into science and your pragmatic scientists into creativity. This project fits well with any Maker Movement activities you may do in your school. Share a feature or two each week in your science class and ask students what science concepts the creator had to use to achieve that design. Ask what problems he/she might have faced in creating it. Ask why it appeals to people (function? visual design?) Challenge student groups to choose a design or invention on this site and analyze the physics behind it. How/why does it work? What simple machines do they see within it? Why did they use those materials? Have them share their findings (or hypotheses) in a multimedia presentation or wiki page, sort of an "invention unwrapped." Teachers of gifted or science club sponsors can find loads of project inspiration at this site. Share it during a career unit for students to investigate creative ways to use science and design in a future career. Have them research the people behind an invention or art piece they particularly enjoy.

Meet Science and Common Core English Language Arts standards using these seven ready-made project plans. Study biomes, the life cycle of a butterfly, the solar system, animals, and famous inventors. While learning about the famous inventors, also learn the value of scientific thinking! Build thinking skills with the challenging culmination piece. These range from creating riddles to creating brochures and journals. All units include step by step directions, Science Content Standards (NSES), ELA Common Core Anchor Standards, and NETS. In addition, there is a list of resources to use and a suggestion for assessment. You MUST register to view the lessons. To register simply give your name and email, and download all seven of these units for free!This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Immerse students in hands-on, inquiry projects with these seven plans. Introduce them on your interactive whiteboard or projector and select a class project to complete. Have student groups choose a topic to research. Created for grades 1 to 5, with one for 5-8, any of the plans could be adjusted to fit any of these grade levels. The science kit lesson plans are free, and so are some of the resources they suggest using, such as Pics4Learning, reviewed here. However, the Pixie and Wixie program that the lesson advises using is not free. Instead, use QwikSlides, reviewed here, or RawShorts, reviewed here. Be sure to bookmark these units for future use.

Create a story using your own pictures. You may upload up to twenty photos. Choose photos from your computer (simply drag and drop) or a Dropbox file. Learn more about Dropbox
here. Enter the text and description to each photo and change the font color, if desired. Click the lock below the last picture to change your story from public to private (or back again). Click done to finish the story. Easily edit and view all of your stories and even share via Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or email. Click embed to get the code to share on a wiki, blog, or website. Viewers of the story can like, comment, or share. You are allowed 50 characters for the title and 240 characters for the description. Note: This is a public site. Be sure to look for appropriate examples of stories created by others.

In the Classroom

Decide whether to share student created stories with the public or make them private depending upon the content, parent permission, and school guidelines. Use this tool to create simple projects using images to tell the story. Use to show the story of an invention that resulted from a scientific discovery or law. Share the many things made from a particular element. In English, create a visual story and create titles for a cover photo or practice using adjectives or adverbs. Create a photo story for history, showcasing great people or specific historical events such as significant battles in World War II. In the arts, create a photo story of achievements of various artists. Students can take pictures of the process of the creations they make and write a "how to" photo story inspired by the images. Students can swap files of photos, using one another's pictures to create a photo story that comes to mind!

We all know about endangered plants and animals, but what about endangered sounds? The Museum of Endangered Sounds offers a collection of sounds unfamiliar to many young people. Click on any thumbnail to hear sounds such as the ka-ching of a cash register, dialing a rotary phone, the sound of dial-up Internet, or the click and winding of a film camera. Although the collection is quite small, it is worth a visit for a trip back to the past! Warning: the clip with TV Snow features a provocative photo. You may want to avoid that example with an immature audience.

In the Classroom

Share this site on your interactive whiteboard and speakers to launch your modern history or technology unit. Include it in a unit on inventions and inventors or even in "sounds of the decades." Challenge students to research and find other "endangered" sounds from the past. Have hem interview parents and grandparents to discover long-missing sounds. Create a class wiki museum of more endangered sounds and images. Challenge students (and parents) to find these items (in real life) and bring them in to share. Have students include sounds from the museum as part of a multimedia project. Use this site to launch discussions about the impact of technology and its rapid changes on such things as home design, economics, and even clothing. Share this site as part of Grandparent's Day activities and have grandparents share memories of these and other obsolete objects.

Comments

Really neat site...Just be forewarned that there's a racy photo of a girl in a bikini on the old TV sound part. You don't see it until you click on the TV. Other than that, cute stuff.

Editorial Note: Yes, we saw that racy photo also. It is mentioned in our review already, towards the end of the description.Angie, GA, Grades: 4 - 6

Celebrate 25 years of the World Wide Web with this retrospective in interactive form. Scroll through to read about the first ideas and learn about the explosive growth and important events throughout the years. Choose auto-play to watch the timeline unfold or scroll at your own pace. As you progress through the story, watch for links to web stories. Viewers of the site share their personal memories each step along the way. Hover your mouse over the right side of your screen to link to the entire report in PDF format.

In the Classroom

Story of the Web is perfect for use on your interactive whiteboard or projector in a unit on technology and invention or in a computer literacy class. Share this site with students who have grown up on the Internet to provide an understanding of how quickly technology has developed. Compare it to the development of a human being over 25 years! Have students create a simple infographic sharing their findings using Easel.ly, reviewed here or Venngage reviewed here. Use an online tool such as Interactive Two Circle Venn Diagram (reviewed here) comparing communication 25 years ago to the present.

The Wright Experience lets you rediscover the innovation and designs of the Wright brothers. Follow the steps in analyzing photographs, making designs, and running tests to make an actual life sized reproduction of the Wright kites, airplanes, and gliders. In every model, find the design, assembly, control, and flight tests. Follow wind tunnel testing to analyze flight performance and see the reinvention of the Wright Brother's works. Explore the different parts of Orville and Wilbur's planes. The education area features videos showing testing or flights. Find links to many other useful sites. Find the latest news about any flight re-creations. If your district blocks YouTube, they may not be viewable. You could always view the videos at home and bring them to class "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as KeepVid reviewed here to download the videos from YouTube.

In the Classroom

Bring the spirit of invention alive in your classroom. Follow the process, from the earlier designs through each later design, each building upon its predecessor. Discover the many types of testing done to determine limits for each problem. The videos of flight will bring your class on board with Wilbur or Orville! Share the videos on your projector (or interactive whiteboard). Discover the steps to the scientific method or design process to apply in other projects. Include this project in a study of leadership or as a lesson in the perseverance of innovation! Use it as an introduction to your Discovery Fair or Science Night.

Inspire creativity and the inventive spirit through this activity challenging students to invent a new pencil. Begin with a pencil that needs improvement to gather ideas for making a better pencil as you explore the creative thought processes and critical thinking skills involved in designing new projects. Although very simple in concept, this site offers simple instructions for looking at everyday objects and the process involved in improving them. This is the Maker Movement in a very simple form!

In the Classroom

Explore Pencil Inventions on your interactive whiteboard with your class as you discuss inventors and inventions. Have students brainstorm or collect ideas on a collaborative bulletin board like Scrumblr, reviewed here (quick start- no membership required!) Challenge cooperative groups to create their own invention then upload a photo they have taken and add voice bubbles to explain what they created using a tool such as Superlame, reviewed here. This is a great activity for gifted students, to help them "think outside the box." What other items (besides a pencil) could you use for the same sort of activity in your classroom to encourage creative fluency and flexibility?

Test out your logic, mechanical understanding, and creativity as you create amazing 2D contraptions! Each contraption uses wheels, wooden stationary logs, and power moving water rods to create a moving vehicle to push a target to the goal. Get a taste of the challenge by trying your hand at the introduction activity. Then begin your regular contraption. Each level adds more challenge. Use the delete button, and try again until you succeed. Registration is not required to use this site. However, more options are available if you register (FREE). As you progress through a level, earn points and badges. Save your designs and send your best designs to your friends using a specific url. You can turn off the (rather annoying) music by clicking the speaker icon.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

In the classroom, develop logic, perseverance, and creativity for your gifted and high achieving students. These activities could be used with all learning levels. Use this activity as part of a unit on inventions or as a lead in to a Maker's Faire. Introduce this activity on your interactive whiteboard or projector and you will have all students hooked! Your ESL/ELL students and weaker readers will be on equal footing with their peers since this site requires very little reading after the introduction. Capture the attention of your students by gamifying science and logic. Continue with class discussions of movement, energy, logic, and strategy. Use as a stepping stone to begin a unit on geometry, energy, or motion. In elementary science classes, include this activity for students who have mastered required curriculum to go beyond the basics of simple machines and motion. Have students add a written explanation of the contraption to take sequencing to a new level. (A screenshot would help them illustrate their writing.) After drawing a scaled model, create the contraption using real objects. Discover the types of energy and movement that are in the model. Organize a contraption competition. Share this link on your class website for students (and their parents) to "tinker" with at home.

Bring science to life with this free community of Science Workshop ideas. The site may not look exciting, but the activities bring real hands-on learning to science. Browse a few activities to get the idea. After registering, click on the CSW Projects and Activities tab. Search the activities by project type (e.g. projectiles, music, woodshop) or by STEM content. Workshop ideas are either video or downloaded instructions with images. Most use simple, inexpensive materials.

In the Classroom

Use these activities to create contraptions for students to manipulate in class. As students use a manipulative, collect their questions about what they observe or wonder about the contraption's motion and characteristics. Students can research the science behind the object or motion. Use class discussion to create understanding about basic scientific principles. Be sure to include a link to this site on your classroom computer or website. Students can use these activities to teach concepts to other students in their class. Many of these activities make great demonstrations as an introduction to a science concept and for uncovering student misconceptions. Expand what you ask students to do by using creative writing, reading, creating Infographics, or learning correct ways to research and report findings about the subject matter.

GE Focus Forward offers a series of 30 three-minute videos featuring stories about innovators. Directed by award-winning documentary film makers, the films range in topics from a "Journey Under the Sea" to a look at the "Secrets of Trees." Hover over any film icon to view a short description of the topic. Click to begin. Share films using social networking buttons within the film. Copy the embed code to embed on any website or blog. Videos are hosted on Vimeo, which is accessible in most schools.

In the Classroom

Use this site as an anticipatory set or "activator" to introduce a unit or lesson on a projector or interactive whiteboard. Have students explore this site independently or in small groups. There is one film about sanitation that refers to "poop," so you may want to avoid classroom giggles from less mature students by setting the tone for scientific viewing. Use as any part of a career unit, as a look at explorers and innovators, or when discussing character education. Be sure to include this site on your class web page for students to access both in and outside of class for further practice. Challenge students to choose a topic to further explore and create a multimedia presentation using one of the many TeachersFirst Edge tools reviewed here.

Join this science competition! Challenge students to demonstrate their own understanding of science by creating a video that explains an idea, invention, concept, or experiment. This annual contest invites students to upload their videos to not only help others better understand science concepts, but to be eligible for a chance to win a cash prize. Click on the different years to view past winners and their submissions. Be sure to check out the rules and information before challenging students. Students need to register prior to uploading videos. Don't worry, registration is FREE! If your younger group of students is interested in participating - no fear! Younger students can participate by the teacher (or parent) completing the video with the help of the students. Don't forget to include both the adult and child consent forms.

In the Classroom

Whether students upload to this challenge, encourage students to show what they know through the creation of a video that explains concepts, experiments, or ideas. Encourage students to take their best videos and upload to this site to join the competition. Be sure to check the completion and upload dates as well as any other rules required for students to enter. Entry deadlines are in November of each year and winners are announced in December. Use this same idea to create a variety of videos that students can share with peers within the school or across the globe on your site, Wikispaces, or other tools. Looking for a site to host your videos? Why not try TeacherTube reviewed here.